San Jose Update

The GYC convention came to a close in San Jose, CA on December 21, 2008. A flood of young people left GYC inspired, challenged, and changed. But that was not the end! An abundance of Bible study interest cards came in on the Sabbath afternoon of GYC and seven churches joined together to carry on the work. Michael Smith and his wife Holly had held training classes prior to GYC to prepare the church members to knock on doors and give Bible studies.

After GYC, the churches came together for a blitz. Church members, local Bible workers, pastors, conference leadership, and GYC workers all came together for a day of training and outreach. There were many testimonies that came back from church members and Bible Workers. Three teams shared with us the following stories:

One of the teams came across a Hindu lady. She thought when she signed up for the Bible studies that she was signing up to stay in touch with someone for prayer. She was really excited someone came back. They explained to her the Bible studies and asked if she had a Bible. She did not, so they went and got her a Bible and signed her up for Bible studies. She was excited!

Another team said they came across one of the Bus drivers from the GYC outreach day. "She was so blessed on the day of the outreach and knew that it was something she should sign up for if all those young people were so excited about it."

The last testimony was about a family that went out together. One of the doors they came to just happened to be an Atheist man who said he just signed up to be nice to the young people. As they talked with him they found out he used to be a Bible teacher. He opened up a bit more as the 13-year-old son took the lead in the conversation. The man is now teaching Atheism at a university and showed them one of his primary books. Once he showed them his materials they asked if he would take a look at what they had. Not being able to refuse the young man, he flipped through the study on Daniel 2 and asked, "What does all this Nebuchadnezzar statue stuff have to do with anything?" The young man replied "It's about how an Atheist king became a Christian." The man agreed to Bible studies through the mail and they were able to pray with him. Praise the Lord!